COLUMN

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

The
utility formats its input into multiple columns.
Rows are filled before columns.
Input is taken from
file
operands, or, by default, from the standard input.
Empty lines are ignored.

The options are as follows:

-c

Output is formatted for a display
columns
wide.

-n

By default, the
command will merge multiple adjacent delimiters into a single delimiter when
using the
-t
option; this option disables that behavior.

-s

Specify a set of characters to be used to delimit columns for the
-t
option.

-t

Determine the number of columns the input contains and create a table.
Columns are delimited with whitespace, by default, or with the characters
supplied using the
-s
option.
Useful for pretty-printing displays.

-x

Fill columns before filling rows.

DIAGNOSTICS

Ex -std

ENVIRONMENT

COLUMNS

The environment variable
COLUMNS
is used to determine the size of
the screen if no other information is available.

EXAMPLES

The previous examples fills rows before columns (the first column might start
with aardvark, while the second with mighty). To fill columns before rows (such
that the first line might contain aardvark and abacus):